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Saturday, December 31, 2011

Isles 40in40--#28

Isles 40 in 40 -- #28

In
honor of the Isles 40th anniversary year, I've put together a list of
the Top 40 moments in club history. I'll go through them throughout
the season, bit by bit.

April 2, 1993-- Turgeon's 50th OTs Rangers at MSG

If you're an Islander fan old enough to remember the team having success in the playoffs, but are under 30, then 1993 is your year of memories.

What you may not remember is that coming into April that spring, a berth in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in three seasons was far from a certainty. Check out the NHL's Patrick Division standings on the morning of April 2nd:

Patrick
Division

W-L-T

Pts

Pittsburgh

51-21-6

108

Washington

39-30-7

85

New Jersey

38-33-6

82

Islanders

36-33-6

78

NY Rangers

33-31-11

77

Philadelphia

28-37-11

67

The Isles thus had a one-point lead over the Rangers for the final playoff spot, with each team having seven games to play, as they met for the final time in the regular season, at Madison Square Garden.

The Isles jumped out to a 2-0 lead on two goals 2:07 apart. Derek King scored on a 5-on-3 at 18:25 of the first

... and Vlad Malakhov doubled the advantage early in the second period with this goal:

However, Ed Olczyk brought the Rangers within one late in the second period and Peter Andersson tied the game on a power play at 8:26 of the third.

The Islanders were awarded a power play with 1:43 to play but could not convert, thus sending the game into overtime. This was still several years before the loser points contaminated the standings so neither team was assured of anything when the extra session began.

Pierre Turgeon had come into the game with 49 goals and was still looking for #50 as overtime play began. With less than 90 seconds remaining in the extra session Turgeon took a pass from Brad Dalgarno in the slot and beat Ranger goalie Mike Richter for the overtime winner...and his 50th goal.

Here is the video of the entire overtime--the audio is the MSG feed with Sam Rosen and John Davidson. (If you'd like to skip to the goal start at about 7:00)

You can see Jiggs' call as part of this highlight reel (recorded at a lower quality)

Turgeon thus joined Mike Bossy, Bryan Trottier and Pat Lafontaine as the only Islanders to score 50 goals in a season -- no Islander has done it since. Pierre would finish the regular season with 58 goals; only Mike Bossy has ever scored more for the Isles.

Turgeon would be honored as the 1992-93 SportsChannel Islanders Most Valuable Player in a ceremony prior to the final regular season game:

As it turned out, Turgeon's goal essentially decided the final playoff spot. The Rangers would win only one more game that season while the Isles would go 40-37-7, finishing with an identical record as the Devils. A tie-breaker placed the Isles third, where they would go on to eliminate Washington in large part due to Ray Ferraro's overtime escapades (see #32), and the Devils fourth, where they would lose to the Penguins...setting up the opportunity for David Volek to end Pittsburgh's run...with another moment on the Isles 40in40 list.

However, Moment #28 belongs to #77, the best player...on the Islanders best team of the 1990s.